Why
should voters adopt "A," when they've rejected so many seemingly similar
proposals in the past? This proposal is soundly designed to provide immediate
tax reduction, true tax limitation for the future, and a school funding
guarantee that protects even school district against reductions in funding. Past
proposals have failed because they lacked one or more of these features:

The two proposals defeated overwhelmingly in 1989 were both net tax
increases. This is a net tax cut.

Proposals in 1992 and 1989, although billed as property tax
limitation, would have allowed higher property taxes. This proposal follows up
on tax reduction with strong tax limitation.

The voucher plan proposal in 1976 would have eliminated school
property taxes but did not specify how the new educational voucher would be
financed. This proposal creates a per-pupil guarantee (although not for private
schools) and dedicates sales tax revenue and lottery proceeds to fund it.

Proposal C in 1992 would have cut taxes by over a half-billion the
first year, growing to $2 billion within a few years. Many school administrators
and public employee union officials felt this was too much of a tax cut and did
not identify a school funding source. This proposal is a modest tax cut of
around $250 million in 1994 and constitutionally allocates funding for schools.

While
the proposal avoids the problems that doomed the preceding
proposals, it does
contain one provision featured in a previous proposal which failed at the ballot
box:

Both this proposal, and Proposal C of 1992, contained per-parcel
caps on assessment growth. These overlap the existing Headlee amendment
protections, and introduce nonuniformity in taxation, but also relieve much
taxpayer anxiety over the current assessment system.

Although introducing some
non-uniformity via an individual parcel assessment cap, the proposal avoids the
systematic disparities that marred earlier measures.[30]